


Hell and Bad Intentions

by Muccamukk



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Casual Sex, Cruising, Dick Winters makes a lot of bad decisions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Internalized Homophobia, Lewis Nixon is kind of an asshole sometimes, M/M, One Night Stands, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Winnix Endgame - Freeform, apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-05 08:39:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14614293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: There's only one way taking a string of dark-haired lovers who absolutely aren't Lewis Nixon can end. It's obvious, and Dick can see it coming, so why can't he seem to stop?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags, as this is a bit of a bumpy ride.
> 
> It also briefly includes the alternate point of view of my _Guns of Navarone_ crossover fic, [In the Corner of My Heart There Is a Scar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537859), but you don't have to read that to read this.

It started in New York, which figured because Dick's mother had warned him about New York. It really started at Fort Benning, the first time Dick laid eyes on Lewis Nixon. Or, if he wanted to think about it, he could say it started at twelve years old when he realised that all he wanted to do was kiss Bobby Cregmore, and that he didn't care about his sister Betty at all. But New York was the first time Dick transitioned from sin of the heart to sin of commission.

He'd spent the last two hours, or so it felt, signing army money orders to get Col. Sink's Southern Comfort order, and by the time all the arrangements were made it was too late to catch a train back to Fort Bragg. One of the too-pretty secretaries suggested that he could stay at the YMCA on West 34th St, only a few blocks away, and Dick had sighed and headed there.

That was when he saw Nix. Rather, he saw an airborne officer with tousled dark hair and a familiar slouch smoking in the doorway just outside the Y, and for a moment Dick knew it was Nix, and he was just so damn glad to see him. He didn't know what kind of puppy love it was not to be able to stand being apart from him for more than forty-eight hours, but here he was now.

Dick grinned and bumped his shoulder into Nix's as he passed, a happy greeting on his lips, only to stop dead in his tracks when he realised that it was some captain from the 13th, and Dick had just made a terrible mistake. He saluted. "Sorry, sir," he said, knowing that he was blushing bright enough to be seen even in brown out conditions. "Thought you were someone else."

Face to face, the man didn't look a whole lot like Nix. They had the same build and the same brown hair, but this man had grey eyes and a patrician nose that lengthened his face and made him look a little arch. That impression grew as he looked Dick over from head to toe and drawled, "Lieutenant, you're welcome to think I'm whoever you like." He returned the salute with a half-mocking swish of his wrist, and if Dick hadn't flushed to the roots of his hair already, he would have then. A certain amount of scuttlebutt that he'd filed away as interesting but unlikely to be relevant about which Ys to stay at and which to avoid, and why, ran through his head now.

"That's, uh, that's fine, sir," Dick said, and the captain shrugged and ground his cigarette out against the bricks behind him. He really only looked like Nix from behind, something about his shoulders, and the way he cocked his hip when he leaned. He had the same confidence and indifference that had simultaneously driven Dick mad and made him want to strip Nix out of his uniform and kiss him stupid.

The officer laughed. He was taking a risk, Dick realised. Had he seen something in Dick that let him know it was safe to show this much of himself? Could everyone see that in Dick? Dick couldn't imagine how. He'd been so careful not to let a glimmer of his secret show, not even on the wrestling team which had had the worst combination of secret pleasure and masochism he'd known until he'd gotten to Benning. "Well," the captain said, "If you change your mind, I'm up in 4E. Have a room to myself. It can be our little secret."

Dick hesitated. He shouldn't even be considering this. He'd stayed resolutely celibate for all of his college and army years so far, and had assumed he always would, even if that meant he'd never have the family he wanted, would never know what it was like to be loved like he loved. A year in, and he'd never breathed a word to Nix about what he really felt, and sworn that he never would. They were going off to war soon, and given the projected airborne mortality rates, he was very likely to take all this to his grave, and not that far in the future.

Maybe that was what tipped him over, the idea of dying without ever knowing what it really felt like, if all his fantasies and illicit glimpses of special magazines had any reality to them. His mother, in the middle of warning him about New York, had said that curiosity would be the end of him someday. She'd been right there too.

Maybe Dick would never completely understand why he did it, but he knew that he did in fact put his hand on the captain's wrist and say, "How about now?"

The next few hours were something of an education, and the captain did look a lot like Nix from behind. Dick never learned his name.

The officer had taken what he called bringing him out seriously. Among the bits of information Dick had picked up, along with a variety of uses for Vaseline and a few more subtle ways to inquire after companionship, was a list of friendly establishments. There was a certain side of the bar at the Astor where one could sit and meet someone else's eyes and be understood. There was a cafeteria in Brooklyn that catered to the fruits, and a tough, soldierly looking young man would have trouble so much as walking to the counter with his virtue intact. There were a few bars in London, the captain thought, and if they'd moved, he told Dick how to follow the trail of hairpins to find new ones. There was a code, a secret language, and once Dick learned it, he would never have to be alone again.

The next morning, Dick thanked him and left for Grand Central to catch the first train south. He wondered if the captain understood that if Dick slept with a thousand dark-haired officers, he'd still be alone.

As he sat on the train watching the sun rise over the Hudson, Dick promised himself that now that his curiosity was satisfied this would be the end of it. He wouldn't permit himself the weakness of sliding like that again. He had his men and his duty, and his friendship with Nix, and that would be enough from now on. He may have lost his mind the night before, but it wouldn't happen again. He would stick to the base, where he knew that he couldn't let himself slip for fear of discovery and a blue discharge, and not risk any of the places his captain had told him about. He wouldn't even think about them.

He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, so he rested his head against the window and dozed most of the way to DC. He dreamed that it had been Nix spread wide beneath him, face screwed up in ecstasy and desire, and woke as the train pulled in glad that he had his attaché case in his lap.

It was then that he truly understood something else his mother had told him, about how once you'd tasted forbidden fruit, it was too late to refuse the knowledge it offered.

A few months later, when they were billeting so near New York that Dick could have hit it with a rifle grenade, he gave in and asked for twelve-hour pass just as Nix and Harry were getting back form theirs. He said he was sorry to miss them. He was going to a show. He read a review of some musical, and then found the bar in the Astor. It was as easy to find an like-minded young man with dark hair as the officer had said.

Neither Nix nor Harry asked him how the show had been, and he was absurdly glad not to have to lie, and guilty as sin for having the lie ready anyway.

They shipped out for England three days following, and Dick ended up sharing a cabin with Nix. If there was anything closer to torture, he didn't know what it was.

They'd tented together before during field exercises, and bunked near each other in camp, but that was distinctly different than ten nights of sleeping in a closed cabin, listening to Nix turn in his sleep and knowing what it would feel like to hold him down and take him. Dick spent too much time thinking about what sounds Nix would make if Dick kissed him, or sucked his cock, or bent him over one of those bunks. He spent a lot of evenings on deck, letting the September's North Atlantic wind chill him to the bones. Nix and Harry thought he was watching for U-boats, and Dick didn't try to dissuade them.

Dick felt trapped. He'd thought that first time with the captain would be scratching an itch, satisfying his curiosity, a moment to feel good before going off to die for his country, but it had been the first step into damnation. Knowing what it felt like to satisfy his desires—or to get as close as he could with a stranger—only made him want to feel more, and knowing what it felt like with strangers only made him want Nix. He felt like he'd spent his whole life eating K-rations, and had only just tasted steak for the first time. Was this how Nix felt about alcohol? Was that what was the matter with Dick, an addiction?

Maybe it was. Well, he'd seen men kick drinking before, and he'd just have to treat himself the same way. From now on, he was on the wagon: no more thinking about Nix as anything other than a buddy, no more imaging what it would be like to kiss him, and no more bars.

Two weeks after they settled in Aldbourne, Dick asked for a weekend pass to London. One of the bars his captain had mentioned was still there, and Dick met a young man in a sharp suit that he suspected might be in some kind of clandestine occupation, legal or otherwise. Dick said Lew's name when he came, but his lover either didn't notice or didn't care.

He said he was shipping out the next morning but wouldn't say where, and Dick never saw him again.

After that, Dick gave up. He both hated that he couldn't seem to shake the monkey on his back and the weakness of character that indicated, and rationalised that it was just a small thing, after all. He threw himself into his duty with an intensity unmatched by anyone in the battalion, working dawn to dusk every day to make sure they would be as ready as they could be when the time came. He read every infantry manual until he knew it by heart, and put himself between Sobel and the men as best he could. If he went to London every couple of months, well, it never tracked back to who he was with the men. He always picked someone from a different service, someone who he'd never run into in the course of his duties, and made sure that he never took a pass at the same time as any of the officers he knew well.

The plague of knowing what he could have with Nix—in another life, if Nix were another man—didn't exactly abate, but Dick's arrangement acted as a steam cock that made it bearable. He could never have what he wanted, but he could have something close. It made leaning against a wall shoulder to shoulder as Nix smoked and Dick talked, or the brush of hands as they passed a map back and forth, or seeing Nix in perspiration-soaked PTs something Dick could appreciate, rather than something that drove him mad. The shame stuck, especially when he hooked up with one dark-haired, broad-shouldered soldier after another, but Dick learned to live with it.

Soon, Dick was more worried about falling out of the sky while being shot at by Germans to be much concerned with his sexual deviancies. When the day actually came, and he was caught in a month of fighting back and forth across Normandy with Nix right at his side every step of the way. It was both the best and most terrible thing that had ever happened to him.

There was a moment when they were both in a ditch, scouting an enemy line. Nix was soaked through and half covered in mud, same as Dick. It had been raining for a solid week, and Dick's leg still ached, and right then the only thing warm in the whole world was Nix's shoulder where it pressed against Dick's, his body heat seeping through two layers of wet ODs. Nix leaned in to say something into Dick's ear, and his breath in Dick's hair was so shocking that Dick didn't catch the words. Just then, Dick almost believed that he could tip his head to Nix's, and catch his lips with his own, easy as that. No one would ever see, no one would ever know, except the two of them.

His father's advice came to him then, _Two people can keep a secret just fine, son, so long as one of them's dead._

"Are you listening to me?" Nix whispered.

Dick rugged his grimy fingers over his equally grimy eyes and shook his head slightly. "Sorry, Nix," he whispered back. "Try again."

"I was going to say there's a better vantage if we go through that culvert," Nix said, lips still brushing Dick's ear and driving him insane, "but I'm changing my professional opinion to 'The E-Company commander is about to fall asleep face down in a ditch, and we've seen enough.'"

He should have protested that, but Dick's had barely been able to keep his eyes open for the last hour, and the cold had soaked through to his bones. He nodded and started to crawl backwards towards their own lines, Nix just behind him.

They were cycled back to Aldbourne not long after, and Dick fell into old habits there. Now he told himself that he had to, or he'd slip up and do something phenomenally stupid like grab Nix by the collar and kiss him the middle of the Battalion CP. He knew that was just an excuse for his lack of discipline, but he still went to London twice between Overlord and Market Garden.

It was in Holland a few weeks after he was promoted to Second Battalion XO that he came closer to that dreaded mistake than he had before.

He'd spent all day running troopers through courts martial, mostly for looting, entirely tedious and a waste of Dick's time and man power. Right at the end of the day he came up with a couple privates from Fox who had not only been stupid enough to jerk each other off in their platoon's billet, but hadn't even locked the door or tried to come up with a plausible excuse when their sergeant had walked in on them. Dick hated the troopers for their carelessness, the sergeant for bringing it up, and D-Company's commander for signing off on it, but it was in his lap now. He couldn't treat sodomy as less than looting, no matter what kind of hypocrite that made him. He gave the pair of them six months confinement on one third pay and a warning that if they were ever caught in such position again it would mean far worse. He'd make sure they were both in different companies when they returned to duty.

"Sink's not going to like that," Nix said later that night. He was in Dick's room, as usual, slumped on the floor next to Dick's foot locker with his legs crossed at the ankles in a way that made Dick want to run his hands up them and dig his fingers into Nix's thighs.

"What?" Dick asked, though he knew.

Nix took another drink and cleared his throat before saying, "Letting the fairies off so lightly."

Dick was glad he had the desk lamp backlighting him. It hid his grimace of distaste at Nix's language. He already knew what he was going to tell Sink, so he said the same to Nix now. "Leigh and Horowitz are good soldiers. They were in Normandy and at Eindhoven. We can't afford to send them home."

"Well, it's your neck," Nix said.

"We can't afford the men now," Dick grumbled. "I wish that sergeant had had the sense to deal with it quietly instead of bringing charges. A quiet transfer would have done it, and saved me the time, too."

Nix held up his bottle and eyed the level. "You haven't you been drinking, have you?"

"No. Why?" Dick knew that too. He knew he was perilously close to saying something he shouldn't or implying something about himself that Nix until now had not had any reason to suspect, asking Nix, what, hypothetically, he might think of that. A moment later, he was glad he hadn't.

"Just never thought you'd be the one to throw the book out for expediency, not over a couple of fruits," Nix answered. He was warming up to this, and if Dick wasn't careful, he'd have an argument on his hands. "Especially when it comes to morale."

Dick knew exactly where the morale question would lead, and he wasn't walking into that trap. "How many troopers do you think do the same thing and don't get caught?" he asked. "It's being an idiot that's the problem."

"If you say so," Nix said, in a tone that implied that he didn't agree, but he also didn't care enough to get in a fight. Good. "Sink's still not going to like it."

"Colonel Sink is welcome to take over all the punitive administration he likes," Dick said shortly. He'd never cared for it in the first place, and today especially it had rubbed his emotions raw. The conversation with Nix had been worse. Gone was any hope of if not fellow feeling than at least sympathy. Dick had never had an excuse to probe his feelings on the topic of sex between men before now, and now he was glad for it. He could happily have spent the rest of the war not knowing Nix's implied opinion of "fairies" at all.

Fortunately Harry came in and saved both of them from saying anything else.

Dick's first lover hadn't mentioned where to go in Paris, but Dick had built up enough experience to follow a trail of dropped hairpins even in a strange city speaking a strange language. He found an underground bar that reminded him of the place under the Ritz in London, with it's gilt chairs, sandbags, and chandelier of candle-stuffed wine bottles.

A duo was playing some kind of swingy jazz on guitars and singing in a language Dick didn't think was French. He saw a lot more working clothes and a lot fewer uniforms here than in London, but the usual crowd had turned out. He even recognised a pilot he'd run into in London, a tall broad-shouldered RAF officer with a jawline out of a comicbook and chocolate eyes. Dick would have tried to connect with him before, but he'd been with someone else last time.

Now their eyes met through the cigarette smoke and candlelight, and Dick felt his mouth quirk up as if to say, "Yeah, I don't know about this place either," and the pilot smiled back. He wasn't Nix, but he had a smile that lit his eyes and made Dick's heart skip a beat. The man raised a glass, and Dick shook his head and pointed to the door with his chin.

Five minutes later, they were back in Dick's hotel room tearing each other's clothes off. They stripped each other with practised efficiency, exchanging kisses and copping feels as each bit of their uniforms fell aside. Dick knew how thin the walls were here and was trying hard not to make a sound, but the pilot had big, smooth hands and Dick loved the way they ran over his back and down to his ass, squeezing and pulling his cheeks apart. Dick didn't even mind that the pilot wanted to be on top, though it wasn't Dick's usual pleasure. It had been three months since his last indulgence, and he would take what he could get.

They were moving fast, and it only took a few minutes before Dick was on his hands and knees with the pilot's cock stretching him wide. He loved this too, he remembered. Maybe not as much as pitching, but it felt damn good just to be able to let go and let himself be taken. He had his face in the pillow to hide his moans, but the pilot dug a hand into his hair and pulled his head around for a kiss. His other hand was on Dick's cock, and neither of them was going to last much longer. Their lips didn't connect, but the pilot kissed Dick's ear and then his cheekbone, and said something Dick couldn't make out but that made him laugh.

The door clicked open then, and Dick's eyes snapped open just long enough to get a perfect view of Nix's shocked expression, and to know that there was no way that Nix could have mistaken who was on the bed taking it up the ass, before it slammed shut again. Dick's whole body tensed, which killed his own arousal, but was enough to tip the pilot into coming. Outside, he heard Nix swearing.

Dick pushed the pilot off him as soon as he finished and scrambled to find his clothes. "Someone saw," he said at the man's dazed expression.

The pilot swore too, eyes wide with fear. "Did he see?" he asked, then corrected. "Did he see who we were, rather?"

"Not you," Dick said, though he couldn't know for sure. It seemed likely that Nix would have focused on the most shocking part of the situation. "I think. I'll go see if I can..." he shook his head, not having the least idea what he could possibly do, throw himself on his own sword to protect his lover maybe. "Stay here. I'll cover."

He had his underwear, pants and shirt on, and that was going to have to be good enough. His ass was still sloppy with the pilots come and his hair was a mess, but nothing he looked like now was going to be worse than what Nix had just seen.

Nix was still in the hall, arms folded, one leg bent so that his boot rested against the wall he was leaning on. He'd settled in for the long haul, but his eyes flicked over Dick's dishevelment, and his poise faltered and his eyes widened in shock.

Maybe Dick shouldn't have left his room. Maybe left to his own, Nix would have concluded he'd mistaken what he'd seen and let it be.

Dick was in it now, in any case. Like when he'd realised that he was pinned down and vastly out numbered by the SS, Dick decided that his only hope of survival was to go on the offensive. "Planning on calling the MPs?" he demanded, keeping his voice as low as he could well still speaking forcefully.

"What?" Nix asked, still flummoxed.

"Are you planning," Dick repeated, emphasising every word, "to call the MPs?"

"No?" Nix said it more like a question, but it would have to do.

Dick turned back to the door and said, "Give it ninety seconds, and then go." He jerked his head towards the end of the hall, and Nix followed him like a balloon pulled on a string. Dick didn't know why he himself wasn't in the same state of shock, maybe keeping the pilot safe was giving him enough to focus on. "What the hell are you doing here, Nix?" he asked.

"I..." Nix was distracted by the door opening down the hall, but he didn't turn. "I decided I'd rather see Paris with you then go back to England. I bribed the concierge for a key. I, uh, thought I'd surprise you."

"Surprise," Dick said bitterly. The pilot was well clear, so he headed back for his room. He didn't think whatever was about to happen would be improved by a hotel hall setting. Though his thin-walled room wasn't going to be a lot better.

The pilot had made the bed. Dick slumped onto it, trying not to notice how much the room smelled like sex, while Nix leaned against the door. If Dick was ever able to have sex again, he was definitely putting a chair under the handle or something. They both waited for the other one to speak. With the pilot gone, Dick didn't know what he should be trying to do now. Defend himself? Explain? Drop to his knees and plead with Nix to not think any less of him? He seemed to have lost all his offensive drive, and just wanted the axe to fall, and soon.

"So," Nix said, finally realising the ball was in his court, "this is new."

Dick sighed. "Not really."

"So," Nix tried again, after a long, painful pause, "this is not new?"

"No," Dick said. They might as well get the worst of it over with, and then he could pick up the pieces. He felt like he was diving for cover as a grenade landed. "This is what I've always been, Nix."

"Do you..." Nix licked his lips, for a moment Dick was worried he would ask the real question, and he was shockingly relieved when all Nix came out with was, "Like it?"

Dick narrowed his eyes. "Clearly." He felt naked in front of Nix, so he started to put his uniform on again. That had the added advantage of giving him an excuse not to look at the end of his relationship as it steamed towards him.

"I mean, it's not some kind of... I don't know, some kind of penance?"

"For what?" Dick asked, and then before he had to hear any inane theories, he said, "No. It's not. I like it. Some people do." He jammed his shirt tails into his pants, snapped his suspenders into place, and then hunted for his jacket. Fortunately the pilot hadn't managed to take the wrong one.

"Huh," was all Nix said for enough time for Dick to get his socks and boots on. "Like those privates you busted last month?"

Dick glared at him, and even Nix seemed to realise that was out of line, but he looked away instead of apologising. It really never was going to be the same between them. Dick wished he could weep, but his feelings were knotted up too tightly inside him. "Well," he said, "I was doing a better job of not getting caught. Until now." Dick really hoped Nix wasn't ask how he could risk his whole career, the lives of his men, his family's approval, everything, for an anonymous fuck, because he didn't have an answer, and he was afraid that he'd end up taking a shot at Nix's drinking purely as covering fire. He couldn't see that ending well.

Nix didn't ask about that, instead he asked, "So you don't like girls at all?"

"Not like that," Dick said. He finger-combed his hair flat and put his garrison cap on and adjusted the angle until it was cocked just so.

"Going somewhere?" Nix asked.

Dick wasn't. He just wanted to have as many pieces of clothing between him and Nix as possible, as if he could disappear into his uniform. If he'd had his helmet, he'd have put that on too. Nix was still leaning against the door, blocking Dick's exit, in any case. Dick glanced at him, imagined falling to his knees and showing Nix how much he could like it too, thought of the stories of MPs demanding the same thing from men like Dick and then turning them in anyway. Dick dismissed that as a dirty little fantasy. Nix might have once been an MP, but he wouldn't do that to anyone, let alone a former friend.

It was time to face all the facts. Dick looked Nix in the eye and asked, "What are you going to do now?"

Nix considered this. "I am going to find a bar and drink whiskey until I can't remember what I just walked in on."

That seemed reasonable. Dick wished that he could lose control like that. He'd picked the wrong vice, it seemed. "And after that?"

"What about after that?"

Dick couldn't tell if he was being deliberately obtuse or if the image of Dick letting another man sodomise him while Dick laughed and tried to kiss him had knocked any kind of strategic thinking out of Nix's head. "After we get back to camp," Dick said. "If you're not calling the MPs, we're still going to be staff officers in the same battalion. You going to be able to do that? If one of us is going to transfer, he should apply soon." It wasn't going to be Dick, not unless Nix forced him out. He wasn't going to lose his men over this. That thought stiffened his spine and gave him something to fight. He needed a fight to keep him going.

"Oh," Nix said. He really hadn't been thinking about it then. "Uh, yeah. I can handle that. What about you?"

Was Dick ever going to be able to look at Nix again, knowing that he knew? He supposed he'd find out. "I haven't changed, Nix," he said.

"Seems like you have," Nix said. His voice was hard now, killing the last shreds of hope that Dick would be able to hold onto some vestige of what they'd had before. This was, at least, going some way to killing the stupid crush that had gotten Dick into this in the first place. Then Nix let his head fall back against the door and groaned, and apparently Dick's crush was still doing just fine, because that put all kinds of thoughts into his head. "Just... just give me a few days, huh?" Nix said. He pushed himself upright and stepped forward, away from the door. "What are you going to do now? Go find your 'friend'?"

Dick grimaced, at the idea as much as slant Nix had put on _friend_. He'd liked the pilot a good deal, but he imagined that they'd both be quite happy never to see each other again. Dick was going to switch to blonds anyway. He should have in the first place. Maybe Nix wasn't completely wrong about penance. "No," he said. "I'll stay in. It's late." He wouldn't sleep, but even if he dared go back to that bar, he couldn't imagine finding another companion for the night.

"All right," Nix said. He looked like he wanted to turn and flee, but couldn't quite figure out how to make the break. Indecision was written all over his face.

Dick wished he would get it over with; it would be better to do it fast and all at once. He was a hypocrite for thinking it though, because he couldn't seem to say the words that would formally end going on three years of friendship either. He should, it was his fault for giving in and seeking out something he shouldn't have. If he'd been the man the rest of the battalion seemed to think he was, the one they loved, none of this would have happened. "It's fine, Lew," he said. "I understand."

"I don't," Nix said, and then he mercifully turned and left.

Dick sank back onto the bed the second the door closed. He should get up and wash. His perspiration and the pilot's were still mixed together on his skin, and his ass was still loose and full of come, but he couldn't seem to find the will to move. He ought to feel filthy, and washing wouldn't make it better anyway. The worst part, worse than the ruins of the dearest friendship he'd ever known or the danger to his career, was the knowledge that he deserved this.

He thought about going out again after all. There was a kind of man who liked to hurt his lovers. Dick had always stayed clear, but now he wondered if physical pain would make him feel less. He wanted to expose himself and take some kind of punishment for what he'd done.

Dick shook his head and started to strip again. He would pour a bath and stay in like he'd said. He couldn't risk being hurt, and the entire idea reeked of the sort of self-indulgence that had gotten him into this in the first place. "Stupid," he muttered to himself.

He'd been right in thinking that he wouldn't sleep. He sat in the bath until the water was cold, and then left to walk the city as the sun rose.


	2. Chapter 2

Dick spent his second day in Paris doing things he knew Nix would avoid. He went on a walking tour, and saw what was left in the Louvre, then sat by the river in the thin winter sun and tried not to think. That night, he briefly considered either returning to the original bar or finding a new one, but he couldn't repress the choking shame he associated with the place, and knew he wouldn't be anyone's idea of good company that night. He wished he had a way to contact the pilot to let him know that it would likely be all right, but Dick didn't even know the man's name, just his unit, and he didn't have a strong knowledge of the RAF's deployment. Asking around would only expose both of them.

No word had come from Nix by the time he left for Mourmelon early the next morning, but Dick hadn't been expecting any. He was going to give it the few days Nix had asked for, and then see if there were any scraps of their friendship left to stitch back together. He hoped, at least, that they'd be able to work together.

"How was Paris?" Harry asked the second he stepped off the train, then he did a double take, and added, "You look like you might even have had fun."

Dick was well aware that he hadn't slept and looked it. He didn't comment past grunting, and hiking his ruck higher on his shoulder.

"Nix didn't come back with you?" Harry asked, entirely unperturbed by Dick's grouchiness.

"No," Dick said. "I trust his ability to find his way back to us on his own."

Harry laughed, and filled Dick in on what he'd missed, which turned out to be very little save that Buck Compton was back form the hospital, which hopefully would help with morale a little. "You know you've got three hours left on that pass," Harry said when Dick headed for his office instead of his billet.

Dick knew, but he hadn't been able stand another minute of wandering the streets of Paris like a ghost afraid to haunt. "I don't think Colonel Strayer will object," he said. Especially since he was still in England, and the battalion had more or less been left to the company commanders for the weekend.

"It's your pass," Harry allowed with a shrug.

"Did you get to Reims?"

Harry sighed. "No luck. I think Nix got you the last liberty in the 506th."

"I'd have given it to you," Dick said with a little too much feeling, and Harry cast him a sideways look.

Instead of taking it up, had bumped his shoulder into Dick's and said, "Nah, if any man in this army needed a damn break, it was you, even if you don't know how to fucking take one." He grinned fondly up at Dick, and Dick felt a wave of affection mingled with trepidation.

It had just occurred to Dick that no Nix meant no one in Mourmelon knew about, which meant Dick was safe, for the next few hours, but maybe not longer than that. He both wanted to keep Harry close for whatever time he had left, and to push him away before he could work out something was wrong, and what that might be. The latter urge won out.

"Don't you have work to do, Lieutenant?" he asked in mock annoyance, trying to shift Harry before he settled into Dick's office for the long haul. Harry laughed and snapped him a mocking salute before turning away from Dick's office door towards Easy's section.

Dick breathed a sigh of relief as he watched him go. Nix had at least tentatively promised not to involve the MPs, but Dick hadn't thought to ask him to keep it from their friends. What if he told Harry, what he'd seen? Then Dick would lose both of them, and he didn't think he could handle that. He wished he were as strong and self-sustaining as the men seemed to think he was, Of course, if that were the case, he wouldn't have been messing around in the first place, and none of this would have happened.

Returning to his work needed more focus than Dick seemed to be capable of. Half the reports dealt bored troopers getting in fights with the 82nd, and the other half were supply problems and shortages, and Dick didn't have the heart for either. He let his mind drift back to what it had felt to have the pilot's soft hands all over him, how strong he'd been, the scrape of his stubble as he'd licked the insides of Dick's thighs. He really was going to have to give that up, at least until the war was over. After, that, well, Dick would figure that out if he survived. Now more than ever, he couldn't see himself going back to Pennsylvania. New York might be better, or London, somewhere he could disappear.

He'd thought, before, that he'd find a way to be near where Nix was, because then he couldn't imagine what it was going to be like to turn around and find him not there. Dick was going to have to learn that, too, and far sooner than he'd feared.

He moved piles of paper around until dusk and then went to find Buck and see how he was holding up. It didn't seem like so long ago that he'd been injured, but it was good to have him back. Between Harry and Buck, they might just be able to hold Easy's officer corps together until the replacements worked themselves out. Dick would have to lean even harder on them if he and Nix were going to spend less time in each other's pockets, which seemed like the mildest possible outcome.

It took Dick half an hour to track Buck down, and before he got a chance to really talk to him, all hell broke loose, and they were loading trucks for the Ardennes.

He didn't see Nix on the drive out, though Harry said he'd gotten back to camp.

"Well, where is he?" Dick had asked impatiently when he didn't turn up with the rest of Second's staff.

"Saw him with Sink," Harry had said, and that had been that. In the swirl of their headlong rush to stem the German advance, Dick hadn't had any more time to work out where his operations officer had gone.

He finally saw Sink just as they were arriving at the crossroads, when Strayer caught up with them, still in his Class A uniform from the wedding.

"Bob, Dick," Sink said offhandedly as he was describing the line they were to hold. "I'm moving Captain Nixon up to Regiment. I need a reliable S3; you'll have to cover without one for now."

"Yes, sir," Dick said automatically. Everything was moving too fast to take in. Hours before they'd been safe in Mourmelon until spring, now...

"Good man," Sink said with a nod. "He's over at First already. They're holding a town called Foy. I'm heading there now." Sink departed in his jeep a minute later, and Dick headed into the forest with his men.

Just like that, Nix was gone from Dick's life. Had he asked for the transfer, despite what he'd said about wanting a few days? If so, he would have had to have gone to Sink straight off the train, mind made up. Had he been that sure he couldn't even trust Dick to be cordial around him, or to trust himself near Dick now that he knew what Dick was?

On the other hand, the 506th PIR's staff wasn't in much better shape than its Second Battalion's. Sink could very easily have just tapped Nix because he knew that he would do an outstanding job. The whole regiment would be better off with Nix as its S3, Second included. Either way, it would mean that Nix would be as safe as he could be in the middle of a German offensive, well back from the line with the rest of Sink's staff.

Dick hated that he had to second guess everything with Nix now, but he didn't have time. They had to start digging in, and there weren't enough shovels.

They spent the rest of that first night and the whole of the next day digging in and trying to find cover. They didn't have axes either, and most of the too-shallow foxholes were open and rapidly filling with a slurry of mud and snow that froze the men's boots in place.

Dick's CP was a hundred yards back from the main line and twice that from the farthest OPs, but for all they knew in the darkness and snow he could be a rocket grenade's reach from the German lines. If they weren't somehow behind them.

By the end of that first day, Dick had had a few minutes to dig himself a shallow foxhole, and Strayer had gone into Bastogne to connect with Regiment. With very little remorse, Dick moved over into the deep, tarpaulin-covered foxhole that Strayer had left, telling himself that they could very easily share in the unlikely event of his CO's return.

There were a thousand things left undone, but Dick could no longer keep his eyes open, and his fingers had stopped being able to close into firsts around sunset. Doc Roe had told him to get at least a few hours of shut eye, if he could. He'd said it a few hours ago, and Dick could no longer resist the pull of sleep.

He crawled down into the foxhole and arranged his bedroll and sleeping bag as best he could to stay out of the muck. It had mostly frozen by now, but he didn't want his body heat to thaw it. He ended up half curled in on himself with his arms around his knees, leaning against the corner of the foxhole, his scarf half wrap, half pillow.

His teeth were chattering, and he tried to focus on warm thoughts. Doc Roe was right, he needed to sleep, and the only way he could think to do that was to focus on something that wasn't being surrounded by panzer divisions. Dick ignored his last encounter in Paris and thought back to his last pass to London before Market Garden. He'd met a young Polish officer there. He'd been younger than Dick, and itching for a chance to return to the continent and free his country, but his English education had stuck him in a translation post in London, and he'd thought he was about to go mad. The officer had wanted someone to listen to him as much as someone to sleep with, but he'd wanted the sex too. Neither of them had had anywhere safe to go, and had awkwardly jerked each other off in the bathroom stalls.

Dick had realised it was the boy's first time part way through, and remembered how sweet his kisses had been and how his hands had shaken as he'd fumbled with Dick's belt.

Dick hadn't been able to just leave him there, and they'd walked in Saint James Park after, hoping there wouldn't be an air raid that night. The blackout had lent enough dark corners for a division to to kiss unseen, and Dick had pushed his lover against a wall and sucked him off before thrusting into the tight space between his thighs.

After, Dick had done his best to explain how things worked for men like them, but he wasn't sure he'd done as good a job as the captain from the 13th. He'd never been someone's first time before, and there seemed like too much to convey. He'd spent far too much time since thinking of things he'd forgotten to tell the young man. Dick hoped that whoever he found next would complete his education. Dick would do better next time, if there was a next time.

He didn't know if he'd be able to bring himself to go back to those kinds of places, not after Nix's sudden arrival had shattered his fantasies so thoroughly. Dick knew should give up on Nix. He was gone now. Dick should find a lover that he could look at and actual see, instead of seeing a shadow of something that he couldn't have. He should focus on keeping his men alive through the coming weeks, and forget about his self indulgence and vice.

He should forget about Nix.

"Hey. Dick, you there?"

Dick's head snapped up. It was Nix's voice from above the foxhole. Nix was here. Rather, the 506th's Operations Officer was here, which meant that something was probably in the middle of going sideways. Dick tried to push himself up, but his sleeping bag had frozen to the wall, and he tangled himself in it. "In here," he said. "I'll be right up."

"No, it's all right," Nix said. "I'll come down." Lifting the cover made no difference in dark or light, but Dick felt as much as heard Nix sliding down into the space across from him. The cover dropped back down, and Nix flipped his lighter open. Dick had to blink against the sudden light before Nix came into focus. He was as haggard and wan as Dick felt, his two-day beard stark against his pale skin, but he was there.

"Hey," he said, and lit a cigarette before snapping the lighter closed.

"Hey," Dick said back, feeling stupid all over again.

"There room in here for two?" Nix asked.

Dick nodded, not knowing what to say.

"I couldn't get away before now," Nix continued. The spark of his cigarette barely lit his face, but Dick found that he couldn't drag his eyes away. "Had to find out where the frigging line was, and try make sure everyone got dug in. Don't think we'll hold Foy long if the krauts throw the same shit as the Fourth Army got."

"What are you doing here?" Dick asked, still trying to work out what context was. "Do you need something from Second? Shouldn't you be in Bastogne?"

Dick heard more than saw Nix's shrug. "Too far from the line. No one knows what's going on back there. And I wanted to talk to you. I haven't had a chance."

The idea that a battalion CP had better information than the regiment's HQ wasn't worth even laughing at, and Dick's mind had fastened onto the small flicker of hope implied in Nix wanting to talk to him at all. "Did you request to be transferred to Regiment?" he asked.

The spark of Nix's cigarette waved back and forth as he shook his head. It flared brightly as he inhaled, casting his cheekbones in red-orange shadow and making his eyes gleam. "Sink tapped me before I said anything. I wouldn't have asked without talking to you first."

Dick tried to quash the flash of possessiveness that rose at those words. "All right," he said, and they both lapsed into silence. Nix'd clearly had his time to think, and just as clearly wanted some privacy to settle things between them. Dick felt the weight of the conversation building between them before Nix said the first word, but didn't know what he could say that would pour oil over these waters. It was Nix's show, and Dick would had already decided what he was willing to fight for: his men, his career, his reputation. He would have walked naked into German artillery to save his friendship with Nix, but that was dead and buried, or dead and about to be buried. Dick tipped his head back against the wall of the foxhole and waited.

"I'm sorry," Nix said at last.

He was going to try to soft peddle this, which only made it worse. "Yeah, me too," Dick answered, not looking at him.

"What are..." Nix started to ask, but cleared his throat and got back onto whatever he'd been planning to say. "I shouldn't have assumed that you'd be alone, and I shouldn't have reacted like I did when I found out that..." _that Dick was a fairy_ , he didn't say, but Dick could hear him thinking it. "When I found out. I was just... surprised."

"We were both very surprised," Dick said neutrally, still waiting for the other shoe.

"Look," Nix said, voice rising in exasperation. He forced it back to a whisper. "My point is that I could have been less of a bastard about it. I'm sorry."

"Oh," Dick said, then, after a long pause wherein he tried to work out where this was going and failed. "Thanks?"

"Christ knows I'm no saint," Nix continued, not seeming to hear him, "and if you've been doing this as long as I've known you, it's not like you've ever tried to jump me in my bunk, so why don't we just"—he made a vague circular gesture that Dick caught out of the corner of his eye—"go on pretending that I don't know."

Dick lifted his head and tried to make out Nix's expression by cigarette light. His face was open and almost hopeful. It was such an unbelievable offer that Dick didn't know how how to take it, except he couldn't look into Nix's wide brown eyes and think he was lying to him. "Yeah," Dick said, feeling every muscle in his body start to unknot one by one. "Yeah, that would be great. Thanks, Lew."

Nix reached across to clap Dick on the shoulder, and his hand lingered, squeezing through layers of sleeping bag and jackets until Dick almost felt warm. If his movements were a little too stiff and intentional, they both pretended not to notice. "Good," he said. "That's good. Same as it always was, huh?."

Dick let himself be touched and resolutely quashed the small, bitter voice that tried to tell him that he shouldn't have to pretend nothing had happened. This reconciliation was all he'd been praying for for days, hope unlooked for. What Nix was offering had always been enough before. It would be now. "Yeah," Dick said again.

"Now," Nix said, and he snuffed the cigarette and reached up and yanked his ruck down through the gap in the tarpaulin, "Think there's room for another trooper to sack out down here?"

"Maybe," Dick said. "So long as he doesn't snore."

Nix laughed softly and flipped his bedroll open next to Dick's so that they half lay, half sat up shoulder to shoulder along the back of the foxhole. It was already warmer with the two of them, and Nix's body seemed to warm it further with every breath, or maybe that was just Dick's heart glowing with hope. Either way, Dick was able to fall asleep almost immediately.

He woke, hours later, with Nix's head resting on his shoulder, and smiled into the darkness. He wanted to kiss Nix's hair, but restrained himself.

It stayed like that, like it had been before, for the next week. Nix would come and go, often spending the night in Dick's CP, walking the line with Dick or even just sitting with him to share a cup of reboiled coffee. Dick had to wonder how much First and Third saw of him, let alone Sink, but Nix didn't seem to sleep much, and could just about be every where at once.

Dick found himself watching Nix when he wasn't looking. Before, he'd done that admiring his beauty, almost against his will and certainly against his better judgement. Now he kept comparing Nix's reactions now to what they were before, trying to tell if there was a difference, not quite trusting their truce. Every so often, Nix would catch him looking and send him a sarcastic look back, but that was just Nix. Dick knew he was making this harder on himself. Nix had said he was going to forget the whole thing, and it seemed that he had. Dick should too. He should just let it lie, but he kept poking at the bruise and finding it still hurt.

Then they lit that stupid fire, and Harry got hit, and in the chaos of blood and screaming for medics and trying to comfort Harry, Dick felt as lost as he ever had. The forest fell still after the jeep pulled away, and Dick slumped onto the frozen ground with his back to a tree. Peacock had sensibly decided to be somewhere else and Nix had vanished as well. Dick had gotten blood on his hands and the cuff of his jacket somehow, and he couldn't work out how to get it off. He picked up a handful of snow and rubbed it between his hands, watching it turn pink as it melted, then cast it aside and picked up another. His hands were cold. Everything was cold.

In the distance, he started to hear the thrum of bomber engines and the roll of flack. The explosions started a moment later. A raid on Bastogne, and he'd sent Harry and Roe into it. Where was Nix?

The snow crunched under jump boots, then Nix was kneeling in front of him. "Hey," he said. He'd gone into the CP and heated some coffee-tinted water, and now held it up to Dick's lips. Dick realised that he was shivering too hard to drink and turned his head away.

Nix shrugged and took a drink himself before trying again. This time Dick got a hold of the tin and took a sip before it sloshed out. The taste was awful and familiar, and he closed his eyes. The steady thud of bombs echoed though the woods.

"What am I going to do without Harry?" Dick asked. He'd thought he'd meant what would Easy do with out its XO and most experienced officer. Then he realised he was going to have to get through the day without seeing that little gap-toothed grin and those twinkling grey eyes, and he felt the world crumbling. He took a long slow breath to steady himself, but he felt it catching in his throat and realised that he was on the verge of tears. It had been so stupid, that fire. Dick should have made Harry put it out right away. None of them were thinking straight any more, and it was only getting worse.

"Are you in love with him?" Nix asked, voice low and sympathetic. He still held the cup of cooling coffee between them, and the smell and warmth acting as a lifeline.

"What?" Dick said. He blinked hard to clear his eyes and tried to see if Nix was serious. He looked it. "With Harry? Of course not. He's my friend." Nix was his friend too, but that was different.

"All right," Nix said. He pushed the cup on Dick again, making him take another swallow before he said, "I just wonder sometimes. You took to him so fast."

Not compared to how fast he'd taken to Nix, but Dick could see his point of view. "He's my friend," he said again, not knowing what he could add to that. He'd been Dick's friend since Camp Mackall, and now he was gone. Even if his wound wasn't as bad as it had looked, and Harry somehow returned, it wouldn't be for months, until this was over, for good or ill. How many of Dick's men would be alive by then?

Dick tipped the cup back, hiding his expression behind it. The coffee water was almost entirely cold now, but it helped him pull himself together. "I wouldn't." He hesitated, not sure how to put this, not sure why Nix was suddenly breaking his pretended ignorance. "I wouldn't take advantage of someone under my command," he said. He'd heard whispers of that, too, like with the MPs: predatory senior officers who forced their orderlies into bed with. The idea had always repelled Dick.

Nix laughed, actually laughed at that, and when Dick narrowed his eyes, asked, "Are you talking about the Harry Welsh who was busted for fighting six times? Good luck putting your hands anywhere he doesn't want them."

Nix had a point, though he must have known that there were ways to force a man that didn't involve violence. The idea got a smile out of Dick anyway, and he relaxed a little. "Still," he said, "simpler if I don't work with them."

"Come on," Nix said. He stood and held a hand down to Dick who let himself be pulled up. "I'll walk the line with you, better show the flag, after that."

He was right. Harry was immensely popular, and the men would take the news hard. Dick should have been up and about already, instead of letting the rumours spread like a spark down a fuse. "Thanks, Lew," he said, hoping that Nix knew it was for more than just the hand up. It had been the first time he'd broken his vow of situational-amnesia, and conversation had almost been normal. Dick didn't quite know what to think of actually being able to talk about his close-held secret. He'd never thought he'd be able to, not with Nix of all people, and he wasn't yet sure it was a good idea.

Nix's question had also been a little too close to home, and Dick hoped that he'd put him well off the scent of a truth he'd almost stumbled into.

"You all right?" Nix asked.

Dick looked down. He still had Harry's blood on his hands, but he pulled his gloves back on over it, and started walking forward towards the line. "I'll be fine," he said.

"Harry will be too, you know," Nix said, falling into step beside Dick. "He's too much of a son of a bitch to die."

"Kitty would kill him," Dick agreed, trying to smile back, but the weight of knowing that wasn't true still lay too heavily on him.

A few nights later—after the Third Army had ridden through snow and hell and blasted through the German lines, Patton claiming every possible bit of glory—Dick and Nix lay curled in the same foxhole as they'd shared the past two weeks. They'd be moving into offensive positions the next morning, but tonight everyone was taking a breath, looking after the wounded, and eating a solid meal for the first time in too long. Nix, whose supplies had been running low, had cadged some scotch off someone on Patton's staff and was a little drunk. There was no reason for him to be at the Second Battalion CP, save that everyone now knew to find him there.

"Hey, Dick," he said, and Dick could tell just from his tone that he was asking something he'd been nerving up to. Dick had thought he was asleep, but clearly gears had been turning.

"Yeah?" Dick said.

It was dark under the tarpaulin, and he couldn't even make out the shape of Nix lying shoulder to shoulder with him, but he could hear his steady breathing and the way he swallowed before asking, "You said you never, you know, with someone you work with?"

Dick had to track back a few days to work out what the euphemism was, and when he did, his heart rate picked up. "I don't," he said, cautiously. "It's safer."

"So when you'd take a pass into London..." Nix didn't finish, but Dick had worked out the question.

"I'm not proud of it, Lew," Dick said. "If that's what you're wondering. I know it's not... not normal." Or godly, or legal.

Nix grunted, a little huff of breath, like he was annoyed at Dick for not following him, for tangentting into an irrelevancy. "You only ask for a pass every few months, and that's when we're in England," he said. "I mean, a few times a year, you go to the city, and"—he left a gap to cover everything Dick did on his passes, which he knew better than to say aloud, even alone, in the dark—"with someone you'll never see again, and that's all you get to have?"

So much for forgetting. He'd clearly been thinking this over for weeks. Put that way, it sounded more sordid than it felt, like Dick was using his lovers and throwing them away. He wondered why Nix wanted to talk about it at all, when it must disgust him. "It's not," Dick started to say, then stopped. There was no point defending himself, not from Nix. "It's safer, not to learn their names, you know?" Nix must know. The MPs could roll through a whole network by leaning on some poor young man and getting him to betray his lovers, and then leaning on them for their lovers. "It doesn't mean they don't matter to me." Even if Dick sometimes lost himself in pretending that they were the best friend he couldn't have. Nix was right; it was sordid. Dick should have had the strength to stop years ago.

But when Nix spoke again, after a pause to gather his thoughts, he said, "That sounds lonely."

The comment broadsided Dick so hard that he gasped, and almost said, "No, I have you," but he caught himself before more than the first word got out. Instead he thought it over. Was he lonely? He did have Nix, and Harry, and the men. Did he wish that he could have love and a family like normal men? He supposed, if he thought about it, which he tried not to. The encounters in London had nothing to do with that, but what did they mean? Was there more to them than just slaking his lust? He'd spent more than a year trying not to think about it, and now, faced with the question, he didn't know an answer besides the shameful fact that he couldn't help himself. He couldn't admit that aloud, not even to Nix.

"None of my business," Nix said, as the silence stretched between them. "Sorry."

"No," Dick said again. "I should have an answer." He let his head fall onto Nix's shoulder, a silent plea for forgiveness, and Nix shifted so that he could rub his cheek against Dick's hat in reply.

"You deserve to be happy, is all," Nix said, and the scotch was making him maudlin, because his voice was thick and too serious.

"I..." Dick started, but he couldn't imagine what to say to that. He swallowed. He could barely imagine surviving the next few weeks, let alone what his life would look like after the war. He could only match Nix's solemnity and say, "Thank you, Lewis. That goes for you as well."

Nix laughed at that, self mocking, but not as harsh as it sometimes was. Dick wished that Nix could see himself as Dick saw him, though that of course would give far too much away.

They should sleep. This might be the last rest they got before the long, grinding push back at the German lines. Now Dick couldn't stop thinking about Nix's implied question: were his affairs lonely? They didn't feel that way; they felt like finding a piece of himself. Meeting kind and decent men who wanted the same thing as he did, more or less, made Dick feel less adrift.

The lonely part was, paradoxically, Nix. Going into city after city, looking for man after man, and trying to make each of them into what Dick wanted, that was the part that left a chasm in Dick's soul. He really did have to switch to blonds. He was only hurting himself.

Trouble was, he'd spent nearly three years trying to convince himself that friendship with Nix was more than enough, and he didn't think that another attempt would produce different results.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you'll probably notice, I've gone with the book's timeline on the events of "Why We Fight." Nix gets demoted first, and goes on the drop with the 17th later, both while they're still in Mourmelon.
> 
> Also, this fic keeps getting longer. Sorry?

The next time Nix said anything, they were holed up in Dick's CP in Haguenau, waiting for word on the patrol for prisoners to come back. It'd been over a month of relentless fighting, and they were both stretched so thin that the least blow will split them wide open. Strayer had gone to bed, and Nix was drinking while Dick listened to the radio for the first reports of covering fire. They could come any second, and both Dick and Nix caught in a moment of waiting for victory or disaster. Dick wished he could trade places with Speirs, save that he wasn't sure how Speirs would handle a battalion.

"Hey, Dick," Nix asked, after casting a glance at the door to their makeshift radio room. It was solid oak and closed.

Dick had become wearily familiar with that tone. "Yeah?"

"What's it like, with"—Nix dropped his voice to a barely audible whisper—"with a fellow?"

"Uh," Dick said.

"Is it like with a girl?"

Dick was too caught off guard by the question to consider the propriety of answering. "I have no idea."

Nix narrowed his eyes, like he thought Dick was making fun of him. "You mean you've never, even just to see if you like it?"

"No," Dick said flatly. He'd never say it to Nix, but he didn't think it was right to fool around with unmarried girls, not when a mistake could ruin them, and certainly not just to prove something he'd always known: that he wasn't interested.

Dick's tone put Nix of that line of approach, but not the general assault. "I mean, at Yale, there were boys who, you know, and they were..."

Peroxide blonde, swaying hips, bright ties, wonderfully soft hands, steel-clad confidence underneath all the high-pitched charm. Dick knew what Nix meant. "Fairies," he said, lip curling at the word.

"Right," Nix agreed complacently, "but you're not like that, but when I saw you..."

What Nix wanted to know, it seemed, was what it felt like to have another man's cock up his ass. Or maybe he wanted to know if that made Dick feel like a woman, however that felt. If Dick were a woman or sleeping with one, Nix wouldn't dream of asking him something this private. He probably wouldn't if he were more sober either. Though nearly the first thing he'd asked Dick was if he was paying some kind of penance, so who knew.

Dick sighed. "I don't know what to say, Lew. It feels good, better than anything. I go the other way, mostly, and that feels like flying. Why do you think I haven't been able to give it up?"

"You tried to give it up?" Nix sounded astonished, but Dick couldn't see why. He'd thought that he'd made it clear that if he could live any other way, he would.

"Of course I have," Dick snapped, a little too loud, a little too angry.

"But," Nix started, but the radio clicked, and a moment later the room filled with echoes of their 50mil laying down covering fire.

Dick felt like he could use a little of that himself, especially since by now he'd worked out that Nix wasn't going to let this rest. The same thing that had made him a good S2 and an excellent S3, despite his questionable sobriety, made him a miserable friend at times like these. Once he had a lead, he was incapable of letting it go until he'd worked out the last detail.

A week later they were back in Mourmelon, and though Nix was technically billeted with the Regimental staff, and Harry was still Easy's XO, they both seemed to end up in Dick's quarters more often than not. As far as Dick could tell, Harry still had no idea what was going on between them, or what Dick did on his leave, and he was perfectly content to keep it that way. Their circle was tentatively expanding to include Speirs and Lipton, and Dick was going to have to get a bigger room. At least he wasn't in tents like the men. The snow was melting now, and the entire camp was a sea of mud.

By about a week in, they found a routine, where the four others played cards and drank, and Dick lay on his bunk and pretended to read an infantry manual while making a sideways commentary on the game. Some time around midnight, Dick plead fatigue and work and threw them out.

That night, Nix lingered, and Dick could tell he was just drunk enough to start asking questions again. Dick closed the door behind Harry and locked it.

"What?" he demanded, pre-empting whatever build up Nix was considering.

"I just don't think it's right," Nix said. He was sitting with his arms folded on the little card table, which was teetering dangerously, chin inches above his forearms.

Dick pressed his lips together and tried not to let that sting. It wasn't as though he disagreed, he just made a point of never mentioning Nix's philandering, and tried to keep a lid on the commentary regarding his drinking, when he could. He'd hoped that Nix would do the same about his affairs, had thought that had been their silent agreement these last few months. "I can't help that," he said shortly. He almost dropped onto his bed, but it felt to much like that night in Paris. He sat across from Nix instead, balancing the table. Better to do this eye to eye.

"No," Nix said. He lifted his head, and looked at Dick with a wounded expression. "I didn't mean that."

"Well what did you mean?" Maybe Dick should have kicked Nix out too, but it seemed like they didn't have much time alone together recently, and Dick was itching for his company in a way that he knew was going to lead to another pass in the next week or so. So much for giving it up.

Nix rubbed his mouth, and deliberately put more thought into picking his words than he had the first time. "I just always pictured you going home, if we make it, getting a little farm in Rural Country, Pennsylvania, marring some Mennonite girl and popping out enough babies for a red-headed baseball team."

That was, frankly, a lot more detailed thought than Dick had put into his post-War plans, even when he was feeling optimistic about them. "I don't think that's going to happen," he said.

"I know!" Nix said. He was drunk, and too loud, but that wasn't what made Dick cringe at his words. "And it's a fucking shame. You'd be a great dad. Better than I'll ever be."

It was, Dick realised all at once, utterly unfair. Here was Nix who had been given everything and threw it all away, who didn't want his beautiful wife, or especially any of his mistresses, who'd almost never seen his daughter, and barely wrote her, who drank his pay and squandered his Ivy League education. The only thing he seemed to love were his buddies and army operations, and he was risking the last now too, with how much he was drinking on duty lately. Dick didn't resent him, he couldn't, but at the same time, he knew that he was never going to get a chance at half of those things. He would never marry, or have kids or a life like his parents had. The option of a marriage like Nix's, where Dick slipped off to the city every so often to find a man, repelled him, and the idea of one lover after another for the rest of his life, never learning names, never putting down roots, now seemed impossibly lonely in its scope. That was fine for wartime, but after, when he was a civilian again? What was he going to do?

Nix was watching him with growing alarm, and Dick realised that too much of his unhappiness was showing on his face, but even after years of Sobel, he couldn't seem to school his expression now. He looked down at the battered surface of the table, and swallowed hard, trying to pull himself together. That was how he missed Nix making a choice.

Next thing Dick knew, the table shook as Nix pushed off of it, Nix's hands were warm and damp on either side of Dick's face, and Dick was being kissed. Nix was tentative at first, just touching his lips to Dick's while Dick sat in frozen astonishment. When Dick parted his lips to protest—or maybe to kiss back—Nix pulled them together, tilted his head, and made a proper job of it. He tasted like whiskey and cigarettes, and when his tongue touched Dick's bottom lip, Dick moaned and let his mouth fall open. He knew, distantly, that this couldn't be happening, but he couldn't work out why not, not when Nix was kissing him and it was perfect.

It was also wrong. After allowing himself two seconds more, Dick gathered his resolve and put both hands on Nix's shoulders, shoving him off at the same time as he pulled away. They both sat back down with heavy thuds, Nix looking as shocked as Dick felt. "For crying out loud, Lewis," Dick said in a low, angry whisper, "what on Earth do you think you're doing?"

It took Nix a minute to formulate an answer to that. "You just looked so sad," he said finally. "I wanted to make you feel better."

"So you kissed me?" That was the most gloriously stupidly Nix thing Dick had ever heard of, and it was both infuriating and touching at the same time. "I'm not..." he took a breath, tried to think of something that would convince Nix, "I can look after myself. I don't need your charity, Nix."

Nix looked at him like a kicked puppy, all wide brown eyes and shame, and it was almost enough to make Dick waver. "I don't want you to have to be alone," he said. "It's... it's not right."

So he was going to throw himself on Dick's cock out of pity? A tiny voice whispered deep, deep down that this was what Dick had always wanted. Nix was drunk and feeling sorry for Dick, and if Dick asked him right now, he'd probably let Dick do whatever he liked to him. They were in a safe, dry room with a locked door, and if Dick wanted to strip Nix and fuck him slowly and thoroughly he could, who would stop him? He could have whatever he wanted. Except that Nix would quite rightly hate him in the morning, and Dick would never been able to live with himself.

"It's not who you are," Dick said, "and we both know it."

Nix hesitated at that, and then licked his lips before saying, "Maybe it could be?"

This was God come down to earth specifically to torture Dick. It had to be. "No," Dick said. He stood, shoving the chair back, and pointed at the door. "Get out. Sober up. We'll talk about this in the morning." Or, preferably, never.

"I'm sorry," Nix said, and if were any drunker he probably would have cried. Dick felt like crying. Nix climbed to his feet and shuffled out, shoulders slumped, and Dick almost called him back, but that way led straight to hell, and he couldn't even pretend it didn't.

"Lew," Dick murmured when the door closed between them. He had no idea what had gotten into his best friend, save that apparently he found the idea of Dick not having a steady lover distressing, and had fixated on some kind of self-sacrificing plan to save Dick from dying alone, as if that could possibly make either of them happy. Dick didn't think he'd ever seen anyone that drunk, not even Nix or Harry.

But that kiss. It had been so sweet and sincere, and Dick knew that it was going to haunt him. Looking at Nix and imagining what it would be like to kiss him had been difficult enough; looking at him and knowing for a fact was going to be a hundred times worse. Dick touched his lips, which were still damp, and swore to do his best to forget this evening had ever happened. Remembering wouldn't do either of them any good.

The next morning, he got a twenty-four hour pass off of Sink, and was on a train to Paris before Nix even woke up.

He went to the bar he'd found in December the minute it opened, and met a first sergeant from the motor corps who wanted to be romanced. He was a tall, lean black man with strong, slender hands, whose high cheekbones set off his expressive hazel-green eyes. They danced for most of the evening, then went back to the sergeant's room and kissed until Dick forgot what Nix had tasted like. Dick kept his eyes open as they made love, and didn't once let himself forget who he was with.

He woke the next morning with legs tangled in his,and a head heavy on his chest, and before he was awake enough to know better, muttered, "Get off, Lew. It's too hot."

The laugh that answered that was distinctly not Nix's, and Dick's eyes snapped open and he turned to see his the sergeant propping himself up on one elbow, looking at Dick with some amusement. Dick liked the way his eyes crinkled. He immediately started to apologise.

"It's nothing," the sergeant said, and leaned down to kiss Dick's cheek affectionately. "I had it that bad once."

Dick sighed. He thought he'd been doing well. "What happened?" he asked.

"The Luftwaffe," the sergeant answered, and his smile faded.

"I'm sorry," Dick said, remembering the ping of the bullet on Nix's helmet, and how he'd been an inch from losing everything.

He kissed the sergeant, and then they made love again as the rising sun crept through the curtains and illuminated the room in honey and gold.

If anyone noticed that Dick was, for the first time in his life, an hour late returning from his liberty, they didn't comment.

Nix showed up in Dick's officer half an hour later, looking like death warmed over and appallingly sober. He closed the door before saying, "Son of a bitch. You said we should talk, and then you ran away."

That was an accurate assessment, and Dick ducked his head in embarrassment. "Yeah," he said.

"Let's take a walk."

"Right." The walls were thin enough even in the battalion CO's office to make any attempt at privacy impossible, especially with the amount of emotion Dick suspected this was going to involve.

Nix held the door open for him, and then they walked out of the camp in silence. The lanes through the countryside were all ankle deep in mud, and they had to pick their way out past the hedgerows, and then stand aside as a platoon from First gloomily jogged through the mire, chanting a jody about never going home no more.

When the runners rounded the bend, Nix finally said, "I was completely out of line the other night."

"You don't say," Dick said. He wasn't anticipating this conversation being a whole lot of fun, and it made him defensive. He didn't look at Nix, and hoped that he too kept his focus on the road in front of them. This would be easier without eye contact.

Nix sighed, sounding exasperated, like Dick was pissing him off, which didn't seem fair. "Look, I'm sorry," he said, but sounded as offended as Dick did. "I know you said you don't mess around in Division, and I shouldn't have assumed that just because you like men, you'd want me."

"Pardon?" Dick said, then waved his question away. This had gone off on a wildly different path than he'd been expecting, and he felt like he and Nix were having two completely separate conversations. "Messing around with someone I work with isn't the problem," he snapped. "The problem is that you're not a queer, and I have no idea what came over you."

"Oh," Nix said, then dropped into silence to reconsider his approach.

They came up on a rise, and Dick turned away from Nix, looking back down over the shallow valley and the sea of olive drab that made up Mourmelon-le-Grand. He hoped to God that they'd have another few weeks in this dismal sea of mud, but there were already rumours of a big drop across the Rhine. Dick just wished he knew if it was going to involve the 101st, or some other airborne division.

Dick steeled himself and turned to Nix, who still had that kicked puppy look that made it next to impossible for Dick to say anything unkind. "I appreciate that you're worried about me," he said, "but I've been looking after myself for a while now. I don't need you to try and turn yourself into something you're not for the sake of our friendship. I don't know what they taught you at Yale, but you can't actually die of loneliness."

Nix brightened, which Dick didn't think was a great sign, given how the rest of this conversation was going. "You see, I've been thinking about that," he said.

"Dying of loneliness?"

Nix snorted. "No, what I am."

"You're not a queer," Dick said again, with more feeling. It almost felt like Nix was deliberately toying with him, like he somehow knew how very badly Dick wanted him, and was using that to punish him for daring to think of Nix like that. "You're married, for Pete's sake! Two months ago you couldn't even look me in the eye when you found out what I'd been doing."

"I said I was sorry for being a bastard about that," Nix snapped. "Just shut up and listen to me, Dick, for Christ's sake."

"All right," Dick said, raising his hands. Nix seemed genuinely upset about something, and Dick was only just realising that he wasn't the one who'd kissed another man for the first time the other night. Nix would be justified in struggling with that, and Dick should have been more patient from the start. He definitely shouldn't have fled to Paris rather than deal with the consequences. He was being selfish again.

Nix jerked his head down the road, and they left the rise and its sightlines of the whole countryside and walked until they got to a narrow bridge over a creek. It's wood was slick with mud, and Nix braced his hip on the railing before turning to Dick again. He seemed to have worked out what he was going to say. "You ever hear of someone being half a... a queer and half regular?" he asked. "Liking both, I mean."

Dick shrugged. "Not really." It seemed possible, but he thought that if someone could be satisfied just with girls, he would stick to them and not take the risk. Nix frowned at that, disappointed, so Dick added, "I don't usually ask. I guess it's possible."

"Okay, so don't hit me, but..." Nix started, then hesitated. He glanced down at the muddy water flooding below them, and Dick could see colour in his cheeks from more than just the wind. "I was curious, all right? So I uh... gave myself a hand, while thinking about you."

"Jesus," Dick said, a prayer as much as anything. Now, on top of everything, he had to live forever with the image of Nix lying naked on his cot, his hand slowly working up and down his cock, maybe his fingers in his mouth as he sucked lightly, and thought of Dick doing... what? Taking Nix like he had the RAF pilot? Sucking Nix off? Being sucked off by Nix? Dick knew he was blushing now too, but he had to ask, "How, uh, how was it?"

"I liked it," Nix admitted. "I was pretty drunk the other night, but I liked kissing you too. I'd like to try more, if you wanted."

"No," Dick snapped. He had actually gone to hell. This was what hell was like: Tantalus forever starving and striving for apples too high to reach, Divis unable to convince Abraham or Lazarus to give him so much as a drop of water while he burned. "Nix, stop." He couldn't believe how angry he was, but he let it carry him forward. "I won't be your experiment, and I won't be your young lady in Aldbourne, and I certainly won't be another wife for you to cheat on. If you want to find out what you like, I can tell you about a couple of bars in Paris, but leave me out of it." His guts knotted at the thought of Nix picking up a strange man and letting himself be used, but not so much as at the idea of being himself an idle diversion to sate Lewis Nixon's curiosity. He'd taken a lot from Nix over the years, but this was too much. "I deserve better."

"Dick..." Nix started to say but Dick was already turning away. His boot skidded on the wet wood, but he caught himself on the rail and nearly ran off the bridge. He knew that with his long legs and more rigorous PT routine, he could outpace Nix, even if he tried to follow. Which, as Dick saw when paused at the rise and turned back, it turned out he wasn't. Instead, Nix was leaning against the bridge rail, head down, looking like he'd just taken a beating. Dick hesitated for a fraction too long, then turned away and trudged back to camp.

By the time he got back to his office, he felt more tired than angry. It wasn't Nix's fault that he didn't know that Dick was in love with him. He thought he was offering to help out a buddy, not teasing Dick with everything Dick had ever wanted but could never have.

Dick should have handled it better. He should have helped bring Nix out, if that was what he wanted. It would better for Nix to learn somewhere safe, with someone he trusted, then to chance a stranger in a strange city. As the past few days had shown, Nix didn't always operate on the best judgement when he'd been drinking. What if he were picked up by someone dangerous, or the MPs, or dangerous MPs? It would be comparable chaining himself to a rock and letting an eagle eat his liver, but maybe if Nix insisted on his experiment, Dick should make sure to go with him, that first time at least, maybe even set him up with someone Dick knew. The idea of guiding Lew Nixon through a date was, at least, enough to make him smile.

Dick wished he hadn't already taken a pass, because finding about half a dozen men to screw his brains out right now seemed immensely appealing.

There was a latrine inspection coming up, which just about suited Dick's mood, and certainly suited the state of his jump boots. He pushed up from his desk, and stalked off. Peacock had better hope to God first platoon passed muster.

Later that night, when Nix had apparently crashed in Harry's room instead of dragging him over to Dick's, Dick started to wonder if he should apologise. Nix must be struggling with what was to him a revelation about himself, and not necessarily a pleasant one, for all he cast it in an almost cheerful light. Dick was for once the more experienced man on the spot, and he should have been more understanding.

The problem was that showing Nix the least understanding seemed to be the same thing as egging him on. If Dick apologised, Lord only knew what Nix would come up with next. Better by far to leave a few bruised feelings, and spare himself having to explain that he was deeply, hopelessly, and pathetically in love with Nix, and he didn't want to have a casual affair with him because it would break his heart. He wasn't going to wear his emotions on his sleeve like some love-sick bobby soxer.

"This is ridiculous," he said aloud to himself, and went to bed.

Nix would work himself out of his sulk eventually. He always did.

He didn't. Over the next few weeks, Nix hit the bottle hard, and Dick watched in helpless alarm as his performance declined until Sink came to him and offered Dick the choice of taking Nix back into Second Battalion or seeing him transferred to the mess, or possibly British Somaliland. Dick of course took Nix back, and while he was making staff changes, shuffled Harry up to his S2.

The demotion seemed to, momentarily, knock the wind out of Nix's sails. Dick hadn't seen as much of him lately, and they hadn't talked about their conversation on the bridge at all. He'd tried to think of a way to both talk Nix out of his funk while not encouraging him, and but he hadn't been able to think of anything. Nix also seemed to have developed a talent for leaving a room just as Dick was entering it.

But late on the night of his demotion, Nix sulked into Dick's room, and slumped back onto Dick's bunk without asking. 

"Thank you," Nix said. He had his arm over his eyes and his boots on the floor.

Dick looked up from his book, and said, "For what?"

"For taking me back. You didn't have to."

"Of course I did," Dick said. He set the book aside and went over to sit in a chair next to the bed. "Nix, of course I did."

"No, you didn't," Nix said, not moving his arm or looking at Dick. "I've been a real son of a bitch lately. No wonder you don't want to..."

Had Dick's sole objection to sleeping with Nix been that he didn't mess around within the division, this certainly would not have changed his mind on that. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to work with someone every day when you'd slept with them and then broken up. He wasn't sure he could have done it. "It's not that," he said, then, trying to get a smile out of Nix, "You've been a real son of a gun since Benning; it's not as if you've changed."

Nix lifted his arm just enough to narrow his eyes at Dick, but his mouth twitched up just a little, and Dick's heart, predictably, skipped a beat. He really was going to have to get over how beautiful Nix was when he smiled, preferably before he started writing poetry about it. "Well, guess I'm your subordinate now anyway," Nix said. "You'll have to look out for my virtue."

Dick remembered that long-ago conversation in the Ardennes about how he wouldn't take advantage of a junior officer, even Harry who'd like as not sock him in the nose. He could not, to be honest, imagine Nix giving a fig about the whole situation either, especially not when he's just been kicked out of Regiment for conduct unbecoming. "It's not that either," he said.

"What the hell is it then?" Nix pushed himself up on his elbows and blinked at Dick, who was backlit by a lamp. "I don't get it. I just figured, we like each other, it'd be safer, it'd sure be more convenient, and frequent, if you wanted, and if it doesn't work out,"—he shrugged slightly—"oh well, no harm done. Still friends. It's nothing you're not already doing, but you keep looking at me like... like I'm suggesting something disgusting, like it's an insult to even ask. Why are you so angry at me?"

He really wasn't going to give up on this, Dick realised, and Dick didn't have another plausible explanation besides the truth. He hadn't wanted to make Nix feel even more sorry for Dick than he already did, or to treat him differently, or make fun. He wanted to keep the small flame of love that had warmed him these last three years close and protected. Or, if he were honest, not to have to give up the thread of hope that went with it. If he never told Nix, Nix could never tell Dick he was being ridiculous, could never say of course he would never spend the rest of his life with just one person, let alone another man, and certainly never Dick. And Dick knew that it would have to be that, or it would have to be nothing, no middle ground. He let his head drop and covered his face with his hands.

Nix sat up and put his hand on his knee, which definitely did not help. Dick had been like a bear with a sore paw for weeks, and all because Nix was trying in his own bizarre way to do something nice for him, now here he was being kind again. Dick wished he would stop. It would be so much easier if Dick could stay angry at him, but he never could. "I won't mention it again," Nix said. "I swear I had no idea it would bother you this much. I, uh, I worry about you, is all. No one ever looks after you."

Dick sighed, took Nix's hand in both of his, and looked him right in the eye. "You've been looking after me since Benning, Lew," he said.

"Along with being a son of a gun?" Nix asked, smiling. His hand was broad and soft and warm, and Dick wanted to lift it to his face and rub his cheek against it. He could, if he wanted, only the price would be too steep.

"Yeah, something like that." He took a deep breath before saying, "It wouldn't be the same with you as it would be with the other guys. I couldn't..." That wasn't right. He could, and he knew it. He tried again. "What I said before, about not being your mistress: if it was you and me, it would have to be just you and me, and no one else." He watched Nix's face carefully, trying to see if he understood, but for all that he was listing to Dick with an attentive expression, no lightbulb went on. Dick was actually going to have to say it. "I'm too in love with you to share, Nix. I'm too in love with you for it to just be buddies blowing off steam. It would have to be all in, and I know that's not what you're offering."

"Oh," Nix said. His eyes were wide, like he'd just seen a whole new world, but he didn't pull he hand away. "Uh, how long have you felt that way?"

"How long have we known each other?" Dick asked. "But it wasn't this bad until you decided to join the paratroopers with me."

"That was in 1942!"

Dick dropped Nix's hand and folded his arms across his chest. "Well, I wasn't planning on letting you know," he said. "You kept asking, and it's, uh, hard to lie to you."

"Huh." Nix looked more surprised than anything. At least he hadn't turned away. Dick had some hope that this was just going to be another awkward thing between them that would work itself out, like Nix walking in on him the first time. It was possible that their friendship would survive after all. Then Nix smiled at Dick, a full, toothy grin, and said, "Well, hell, Dick, no wonder you took me back."

Dick put both hands in the middle of Nix's chest and shoved him back onto the bed, then he hit him with his pillow for good measure. Nix retaliated, and a minute later they were rolling on the floor laughing, each trying to get the upper hand.

Dick was grinning so hard his face hurt. Everything was the same as it always had been between them, except Dick's heart felt a hundred times lighter. After three years, he'd told the truth, and it turned out that Nix didn't care. If a small part of him was disappointed that Nix didn't feel the same way, well, that was buried until the flood of relief that everything was going to be okay between them.


	4. Chapter 4

The 101st spent the next few weeks training for that drop over the Rhine, which was to be under Montgomery's command again. Dick didn't know if he thought it was too soon to put the men back into action, or if he was glad to be moving forward again. The men were restless and disliked Mourmelon with its boredom and its mud. At least the accelerated exercises kept them busy. They kept Dick and Nix busy too. It was good to be working together again, shoulder to shoulder like they had been before Nix was bumped up to Regiment. Dick shouldn't be glad for his best friend's demotion, but he could at least admit that he was happy to spend more time with him.

Nix, for his part, seemed to lay off the sauce a little, at least in the day time. He hadn't said a word to Dick about his confession, and Dick felt hopeful that things were getting back to normal between them. It was almost as if they'd come full circle back to before Nix had walked in on Dick, only without the weight of secrets between them. If he hadn't been so busy, Dick would almost be happy.

D-Day minus five came, and they were at the point of embarking, when orders came down that the 17th Airborne Division would be jumping instead, and the 101st was to stand down.

Somewhere, in the sea of mixed emotions that followed their sudden reprieve, Nix talked Dick into sending him as one of the 101st's observers.

"It's going to be a cakewalk," Nix said, in almost the same tone that he'd used to describe Market Garden, which, now that Dick thought about it, had also been a Montgomery-led joint operation. "The krauts are through."

"That's what you said before Eindhoven," Dick said. "Second lost almost two hundred men, and you got shot in the head."

"You need to send someone," Nix persisted, ignoring both Dick's perfectly reasonable counter argument and the fact that the 506th's observer did not have to come from Second Battalion. "Don't make me beg."

Dick narrowed his eyes at Nix, who grinned at him, knowing that he'd hit on something Dick couldn't say no to, and that Dick knew it too. "Fine," Dick said, "but promise me you'll be careful!"

Nix actually laughed at that, and Dick was too busy grinning back at him to resent being played.

That night, when Nix had packed off for the embarkation point, the reality of what was happening properly sank in. Dick had sent Nix off to war without anyone he trusted to watch his back. Maybe he would be with staff, and not in the line of fire, but he would still be in a plane over enemy territory, and if the Germans had proved adept at nothing else, it was shooting Allied aircraft out of the sky. Worse yet, a lowly battalion commander wouldn't know the results of the operation until most of the ETO did, let alone the fate of a single officer.

He spent the next few days sorting out the snarl of paperwork that gearing up to leave and then not going had caused, and trying not to think about Nix surrounded by strangers. On the day of the operation, when he knew, that the C-47s would be lifting off into the clear German sky, and those lethal eighty-eights would be taking aim while FWs and Messerschmitts circled, Dick found himself in the chapel praying with all his soul.

Dick was pathetically glad that he'd told Nix the truth. If this was to be the end, then at least they'd go down knowing each other's true hearts. Life without Nix would be unendurable, but he couldn't imagine how much worse piling regret and missed chances on top of that could be. Better by far to know that he'd never had a chance, and that that was all right, than to spend the rest of his life with a what if.

Sink found him still in the chapel hours later. Dick knew there could only be one reason for his CO to track him down in church, and he tried to still his expression before he stood and saluted. From Sink's fond look, he was as transparent as water.

"Nixon came through, son," Sink said, sparing Dick any lead up. "I just head from Jim Cloutts with the 513th. Said they took a lot of flack, but got the job done."

Dick felt as though the floor had sunk under his feet and now he was floating untethered, but somehow he managed to say, "That's good to hear, sir. Thank you for letting me know. Any word on his return?"

"Should be tomorrow sometime, if they can spare the transport." Sink patted Dick's shoulder, and looked sympathetic. "Oh, did you hear about Patton?"

"No, sir?" Dick answered, not aside from everything he'd already heard about Patton, which was too much in his opinion.

"Son of a bitch couldn't stomach the Brits making it back over the Rhine before him. Threw up a pontoon bridge and stole a march on them. Had the whole Third Army tucked up against the Rhur two days ago."

"That sounds like General Patton, sir," Dick said. He wanted to ask when the 101st would be deployed, but he knew that Sink would have told him if he knew. He expected that they would wait on the outcomes of the two river crossings before they were moved into a supporting position, another week, at least, unless something when disastrously wrong.

It didn't matter anyway, so long as he had Nix with him.

He didn't hear any more about how Varsity had gone until Nix returned the next morning, and then by the time Dick got clear of his briefings, Nix was already three sheets to the wind. Justifiably so, it turned out. Dick listened in horror as Nix described the exploding plane, his own narrow escape, how the pilots and most of his boys had gone down in flames. If Nix hadn't been jumpmaster and first out, it would have been him, too. It had been so very close.

Dick kept a space between them. He wanted to take Nix into his arms and stroke his hair and tell him that everything was going to be okay, or to kiss him until he forgot they were even at war, but Nix was radiating anger and despair like a blast furnace, and Dick let him be. It wouldn't be okay, not for the dozen boys in Nix's stick, or for the hundreds more in the rest of Varsity, and not for all the boys in the 101st that would die before the war was over. There was nothing Dick could say that would change that, or that would make writing those letters any easier, no matter how much he wished he could take Nix's burdens onto his own shoulders.

Nix drank himself flat unconscious before noon, but he showed up in Dick's quarters that evening, sallow, wobbly and shamefaced, but alive. Dick smiled at him, and before he could think better of it, pulled him into a bear hug. Nix made a surprised grunt, but wrapped his arms around Dick's ribs and hugged him back like he was clinging to a life preserver. Dick buried his face in Nix's neck and just breathed in the warm, living scent of him, not caring about the perspiration or stale whiskey, not caring about anything except that Nix was alive and safe and in his arms. This wasn't right, it wasn't how friends held each other, but didn't didn't care about that either.

"I am never doing that again," Nix said.

"I'm never letting you," Dick agreed. "Not without me."

"I'm glad you weren't there." Nix's arms went slack, and Dick realised that this was probably as long as he was going to get, and let go, stepping away a little. Nix looked away, avoiding Dick's eyes, like he was ashamed of something, though he'd just been so brave that Dick couldn't stand how proud he was. "I wished you had been," Nix said in a whisper. "The chute opened, burning fuselage coming down all around me, flak coming up, and all I could think was that I didn't want to die alone."

"Oh, Lew," Dick said. He didn't know what else he could say, so he put his hand on Nix's shoulder and squeezed lightly, reassuring himself as much as Nix.

Nix looked down at Dick's hand, still avoiding his eyes. His voice was shaky, near tears, as he confessed, "And I didn't want my wife, or my family, or anyone. I wanted you."

"I'd rather drop into enemy territory with me too," Dick said, aiming for a smile, anything to shave the edges of Nix's anguish. "Can't say how your wife would do with an M1." He must have missed, because Nix still wouldn't look at him, and now Dick actually was getting worried. He ducked down and leaned right to try and catch Nix's line of sight, asking, "Nix, are you all right?"

"Uh, yeah." Nix hesitated for one last second before finally meeting Dick's eyes. "Except I think I might be in love with you."

Dick dropped his hand and stepped back until there was a full arm's length between them. "That's not funny," he said. He didn't understand how Nix had been so good about not teasing Dick for carrying a torch, only to mock him now of all times. But who knew what Nix was thinking on a good day?

"Well, I'm not joking," Nix replied. He looked levelly at Dick, and he had the same serious expression as he had before he jumped that first time at Toccoa. "I think about what I'm going to do next, and I can't imagine not doing it with you. Not just tomorrow, or the next deployment, but after we get home, hell for the rest of my life. I just... I need you there, Dick."

"I can't." Dick turned away, crossing to his blacked out window and covering his mouth with both hands. This wasn't real. He'd fallen into some dream world where he got to have everything he'd ever imagined, and he was going to wake up soon and find out it was all a horrible joke. Nix couldn't mean it. It just wasn't possible that after all these years, Dick would actually get to have this. He swallowed, then cleared his throat. "What about your marriage?" He had to make Nix think about what this actually meant, make him come to his senses, make him take back what he'd said.

"I'll ask her for a divorce. I'll admit fault. She'll be delighted."

It couldn't be that easy. Even if Nix meant it now—and how could he?—what about when they actually got back States side, and Nix realised how much more difficult this choice would make every part of his life? What about next time he saw a pretty face or a short skirt? "I guess when you get tired of me, you won't even have to hire a lawyer," Dick said. It was a cruel thing to say, but Dick didn't know how to be anything else right now. Every other possibility promised to cut him too deeply.

Behind him, Nix gasped, but he didn't falter. "I don't know what I can promise that you'll believe. You said you wanted all in or nothing, and I can only say that I'll try to give you everything. God knows I'm not good for much some days, or hell, most days, but if you'd let me, I'd do my best to stand by you, no matter what."

A small, nasty voice inside Dick wondered if those were the words he'd used last time he'd proposed, but Dick pushed it aside. That wasn't fair to Nix, who was trying to meet the conditions Dick had set and to give Dick what he'd said he wanted. It was Dick who was being a coward. He squared his shoulders and turned around to face his future, whatever that might be.

Nix was as folded in on himself as a man could be while still standing upright, shoulders hunched forward and his chin tucked in. He was watching Dick intently, his expression a mix of hope and trepidation.

Dick cleared his throat again, before saying. "You've never let me down, Nix. Not when it mattered."

Dick took a step forward, then another. The space between them vanished, and Nix's fingers were in his hair, and they were kissing like they needed it to breath. Their teeth bumped, and Nix's nose dug into Dick's cheek, until they got the angle right, and then Dick could feel nothing but Nix's mouth on his. His hands dug into Nix's shoulders, then ran down the line of his back, feeling solid muscle through his shirt, wanting to feel skin. Nix's tongue licked the inside of his lips, teasingly, and Dick tried to suck on it, only to end up with them both falling out of the kiss by moving the wrong way at the same time. He dropped his head to Nix's shoulder, laughing, giddy, hardly able to breathe.

Nix stroked his hair, and kissed the crown of his head, and Dick could hear the smile in his voice, as he asked, "So that's a yes?"

"Yeah," Dick said. "Yeah, that's a yes."

"Jesus, you're hard to get."

Dick lifted his head so he could watch Nix's face. He wanted to memorise every detail of this moment. "You could have had me any time, Nix," he said.

Nix laughed, and it lifted Dick's heart the same as it always had, except higher and brighter. They'd barely touched each other, and already Dick felt like he was flying without a C-47. Nix's laugh had always made Dick want to kiss him, so this time he did. He could do that now.

It was slower this time, more like their first kiss all those weeks ago. Nix cradled his face between his hands, and brushed their lips together. He kissed the corner of Dick's mouth, then, smiling, the tip of his nose. He was too close to focus on, but Dick kept his eyes open. He parted his lips and waited, and Nix kissed him again, properly this time.

Dick's fingers found the edge of Nix's shirt and pulled it up so that he could feel his bare, skin, but his suspenders were in the way. Dick made a frustrated sound, and could feel Nix smiling against his mouth.

"Woah, there, cowboy." Nix's hands didn't leave Dick's face, but he drew back, and added more seriously, "As much as I hate to break the mood, I've never done this before, and I'd, uh, appreciate if we took it slow."

Dick blinked. "I thought you were going to experiment, see what you liked." Rather, Dick had been deliberately not thinking about it for weeks.

"Nah, didn't see the point if it wasn't you," Nix said, shrugging. He glanced down then back up at Dick through his eyelashes. He actually looked a little shy, which was a new one on Nix.

"Oh." Dick needed a moment to wrap his mind around that, because that second it felt as unreal as when Nix had said he was in love with him. He was still considering the possibility that he'd fallen into some wonderful, prefect dream, and he when he woke up he wasn't going to be able to live with reality. Dick pulled out of Nix's hold on him and went over to the door to double check that it was locked, and then, on consideration, hauled a chair over and jammed it under the handle. Getting walked in on once had turned out pretty well, on the whole, but he wasn't going to risk a second time.

Nix had jammed his hands in his pockets while Dick was turned away, and now looked embarrassed. It was adorable. Dick kissed him again, because he could, and he was never in a million years going to get tired of doing it. "I want to see you naked," he whispered.

"Nothing you haven't seen," Nix said.

"Not like this," Dick told him. He undid Nix's tie, and then started working down his shirt buttons, pausing for kisses in between. Nix put his hands on Dick's elbows, but let himself be stripped to the waist without protest. Dick ran his hands down Nix's arms as he pushed his shirt off, delighting in finally getting to touch. Nix ducked his head as Dick pulled his undershirt off, and then spread his arms, as to ask if Dick liked what he saw. Dick did. He grinned at Nix—he'd been smiling more in the last half hour than he ever had in his life—and looked him up and down with deliberation. "Not bad," he said, and laughed when Nix pulled a face.

Nix stopped glaring at him when Dick dropped to his knees in front of him and started on his bootlaces. Then he just looked a little stunned. He braced a hand on Dick's shoulder when Dick pulled his boots off and peeled him out of his socks, and then squeezed hard in a silent plea for a pause when Dick's hands rose to his belt. "I'm serious," he said.

"I know," Dick said, not moving. He wanted to do this right, wanted more than anything to do right by Nix. "I was thinking of giving you a tongue bath, and then you could give me a hand, but if you wanted to do something else..."

"No, that,"—Nix swallowed—"that sounds like a square deal. You don't want, uh, more?"

"Maybe some other time," Dick said, and revelled in the knowledge that there were going to be other times, assuming he didn't mess this one up too badly. "We don't ever have to do things you don't like." That might have been a hard promise to keep, except it was Nix, and even getting to touch him this much was more than Dick had ever dreamed would happen. Going on information currently available, he'd be pretty happy sucking Nix off for the rest of his life and doing nothing else.

Nix's hands moved to cover Dick's over his buckle, their fingers curling together for a moment as Nix squeezed, and then he let go, giving Dick access to do whatever he liked. "I don't know what I like," he admitted, "but I'm planning to have fun finding out."

Dick rested his forehead against Nix's stomach for a moment, which made him giggle as Dick's hair tickled. He got Nix's belt open and his fly down, then peeled his pants down to his ankles, making sure to run his fingers down the backs of his legs as he went. The soft place behind Nix's knees were ticklish too, apparently, and Dick filed that away for later. He had a hundred thousand things to learn about Nix's body, and he was going to savour every one of them. He hooked his fingers over the band of Nix's shorts, and then paused, looking up to make sure this was okay. Though the fact that he could see Nix's cock stiffening though the olive drab cotton gave him a pretty good indication.

Nix was looking down at him, eyes still a little wide, and there was hesitation there as well as desire. "Dick," he said, "you don't have to. I know a lot of girls don't like..."

Laughing, Dick tugged Nix's shorts down to join his pants, and then said, "Lew, if you think I'm a girl, we're going to run into problems later."

"All right, all right," Nix said, laughing too. He stepped out of his pants and shorts and kicked them aside. "Carry on then."

Nix was more than half erect, uncut cock thick and heavy, and Dick licked his lips before spreading his hands on either side of Nix's hips and holding him steady. They should be back against a wall, so Nix would have something to lean on, but Dick couldn't wait any longer. Carefully, almost reverently, he kissed the side of Nix's cock, right at the base, and then dragged his tongue back up the whole length of it.

"Jesus, do that again," Nix breathed. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and Dick could see he was making an effort not to grab him.

"I don't know, Nix," Dick said. "Are you sure you like it?"

Nix swore at him, and then swore again when Dick took the tip of his cock in his mouth and swirled his tongue around the head. His hips were shaking under Dick's hands, and he was already breathing fast. Dick inched his mouth down, sucking as he went—marvelling at how each time he moved Nix made a new sound—until he was as far back as he could go without choking. He'd never got the trick of swallowing that some men had, but Nix didn't seem to care. Dick pulled back just as slowly, dragging his tongue along the bottom as he went. Nix's cock left his lips with a pop, and Nix said, "Dick, I swear to God, if you stop now..."

He didn't get anything else out before Dick pressed his face between his legs and licked his balls. Nix's hands flew to Dick's shoulders, digging in hard, but not pulling him forward. Dick's chest brushed Nix's knees, and he could feel them trembling. He could make Nix literally go weak in the knees, he realised, and he hadn't even gotten started. He mouthed Nix's balls, then sucked one into his mouth, and Nix made sobbing sound. Dick knew his stubble was rubbing against the insides of Nix's thighs, and that the contrast between the softness of his lips, and sharp scrape would be making Nix's head spin. He pulled away, tilted his head, and went back in. Nix made the sobbing sound again, and then whimpered when Dick licked him from root to tip again.

When Dick sucked him, going down fast and hard this time, Nix couldn't even make a coherent sound, just a trail of small, high, almost lost-sounding noises. His fingers dug deeper into Dick's shoulders, hard enough to leave bruises, and Lord if the idea of that didn't make Dick hard. He hummed and pulled back even more slowly than the first time, just to hear Nix's reaction, which was voiceless panting now, and continued to be as Dick bobbed up and down a few more times. Nix couldn't seem to find the breath to moan when Dick ran his tongue over his slit and then sucked hard.

Nix's body tensed under Dick's hands, and he tried to pull away, but Dick moved with Nix and swallowed his come as it shot into his mouth. He kept sucking gently, humming a little and staying with Nix as he shook and tried thrust and flexed his fingers against Dick's shoulders. Nix was panting like he'd run Currahee, and Dick knew that if didn't have something to lean on, he wouldn't be standing.

Dick waited until Nix stilled before he pulled back and looked up again. Nix was staring down at him like he'd just received a revelation, or maybe shell blast. His mouth was open, and his eyes dark and glazed. When he realised that Dick was looking at him, he whispered, "Jesus H. Christ. We could have been doing this for three years?"

Dick smiled up at him, more than a little pleased with himself, and admitted, "I wouldn't have been as good at it three years ago."

"I would have suffered through it!" Nix said, then frowned. "You've got, uh..." he indicated the corner of his mouth then gestured at Dick.

"Oh, sorry." Dick wiped the come from his cheek with his finger and then, not breaking eye contact with Nix, made a show of licking it off. He was blushing at the boldness of that, more than he had from actually sucking Nix off, but watching Nix choke at the sight was worth it. Dick's knees hurt from being on the floor so long, and his cock pressed uncomfortable against the inside of his ODs. "Let's move to the bed."

"Right, sure," Nix said. It seemed to have clicked that he was completely naked while Dick hadn't done more than loosen his tie, and after he pulled Dick to his feet, he reached to undress him.

"I've got it," Dick said. "You go lie down."

Nix went over to Dick's brass-framed single bed and lounged, watching Dick with interest.

Dick had meant to make a show of undressing, but he felt suddenly unsure. Nix had obviously enjoyed his touch, but what man didn't like getting sucked off, and he'd probably never had a proper job done of it before now. Nix had, on the other hand, shown no sign that he thought that Dick was physically attractive, and Dick knew that he wasn't a great prize. He was too lean, and too red-headed, and wasn't at all pretty in the way some of the swishy boys were, or classically beautiful like Nix, or even ruggedly handsome like the pilot had been. He certainly didn't look the least like anyone he'd ever seen Nix with. Which, only reminded him that deciding that you might like to touch someone's cock wasn't the same thing as looking one and having to do it, especially not as hard as Dick was. So instead of teasing, he undressed hurriedly, like he would for the shower, setting each piece of his uniform aside as quickly as he could. Better to get it over with and find out.

He turned to fold his pants over a chair, and then looked up at Nix. He could feel his face flushing, like it hadn't with anyone since that captain from the 13th, but he faced Nix squarely and spread his hands like Nix had before.

"I dunno," Nix said, but his smirk softened the words. "Turn around. I need a better look."

Dick sighed pointedly, but raised his arms over his head and turned three-sixty. Just knowing that Nix was looking at him, appraising him, made his heart beat harder. He stopped when he was facing Nix, and let his arms drop. "Pass muster?" he asked.

Nix sucked his teeth. "Well, not bad," he allowed, then when Dick hesitated, added, "Come over here, you idiot." He slid over until his back was against the wall and there was just enough room for Dick to lie next to him. Dick lay on his back, arms folded behind his head, painfully aware of Nix's chest against his side and the way their knees bumped. Nix rested his head on the inside of Dick's arm, and said into his ear, "You're fucking gorgeous, and I can't wait to touch you."

"Really?" Dick asked, despite himself. He turned to see if Nix was still making fun of him, which is how he caught what had been meant as a cheek kiss full on the lips. They kissed for a minute, just lying next to each other, not touching save where their bodies brushed against each other. Dick let his mouth fall open, wanting Nix to take him more deeply, but Nix pulled away and made a face. "What?" Dick asked, surprised.

Nix wiggled his jaw back and forth and smacked his lips. "Huh," he said.

Dick realised what his mouth must taste like, and tried to roll away. "Sorry, I'll just..." he started, but was too embarrassed to say anything else. He should have thought to brush his teeth first. Of course Nix wouldn't want to taste his own come, or anyone else's.

Nix caught his arm, holding him on the bed. "No, just caught me by surprise," he told Dick. Then he leaned in and kissed him open mouthed and sloppy, running his tongue along Dick's teeth until Dick opened his mouth again and all of his 'should haves' melted away. He groaned under Nix's mouth and rolled his hips. "You want something?" Nix asked. He trailed a finger down the centre of Dick's chest, but stopped just above his bellybutton.

"Yeah, maybe," Dick said, though he was amazed he could talk at all, the world was vanishing in a haze of desire, and Nix's face inches from his own seemed like the only thing in focus. "Didn't we make a deal, back at the start of all this?"

"Oh, yeah." Nix smiled, snowing teeth. "What was that again?"

Dick rolled his eyes. "Lewis, please put you hand on my cock."

"Or right, that was it," Nix said, still grinning and unrepentant. He did put his hand on Dick's cock though, so Dick couldn't complain. The sudden touch felt like an electric current, and Dick thrust up into Nix's hand. Nix curled his fingers around the base, watching Dick's expression intently. "You like that?" he asked.

"Yeah," Dick grunted. He was breathing through clenched teeth, because even though Nix had barely touched him his whole body was screaming for more, faster, harder. "Harder, please."

"Like this?" Nix squeezed slightly, barely increasing pressure at all, and Dick was about to tell him off, when he pulled his hand up the length and rolled to ball of his thumb over the tip. Dick panted hard, struggling not to cry out or make too much noise. He had to close his eyes, because Nix watching his face while he stroked him off was too much. Nix let go, and Dick sighed explosively, but Nix was just changing the angle of his hand, and this time his grip was firmer and more sure. "This is how I like to do it," Nix said into his ear. "You'll have to show me your way later. I'd like to watch you pull yourself off." He twisted his wrist and ran just the very edge of his thumbnail over Dick's skin as he pulled away. Dick bit his lip hard and whimpered, as much at Nix's honey-sweet promises as his touch. "Do you think of me when you do this?"

"Yes," Dick gasped, then, "yes, oh, Nix, please."

"Next time we get leave," Nix continued, repeating the motion so slowly that Dick thought that time might have stopped, "I'm going to rent us some place in the middle of nowhere, and I'm going to take you apart, just touching you, like this." He put his mouth over Dick's nipple and licked, then nipped at the same time as he started jerking his hand faster. "Christ," Nix said. "Everything shows on your face when you're like this, no more masks. Gorgeous."

He could take Dick apart if he wanted to, for good or ill. Whatever Nix did next, Dick lay completely open to him. He'd wanted someone's touch this much before, and revelled in it, but he'd never felt so vulnerable. He'd never been with someone from whom there was no chance of hiding, and it scared him a little, but not enough to want it to stop.

Nix had paused, seeming to be waiting for him to say something, but Dick's blood was ringing through his ears, his whole attention seemed focused on the heat in his cock, and he could no longer speak. He leaned up blindly trying to find a kiss, and Nix's lips met his. Nix swallowed his cries as he continued to stroke Dick off. Dick dug his fingers into Nix's hair, holding their mouths together as his body bucked and shook under Nix's touch.

He said Nix's name as he came, and wished he could have screamed it, or at least that Nix could have heard. Next time, if there was a next time.

Nix wiped his hand on Dick's stomach and stroked his chest hair until Dick's head cleared, and he caught his breath enough to speak. Too bad he didn't know what to say. He wanted to ask if Nix had meant what he said, or if he'd been sweet talking to make Dick feel good, but he was too afraid of the answer. He wanted to tell Nix how good he'd felt, but he was suddenly too shy.

"So," Nix said after a long pause. "Having made some inquiries into the topic, I think it's safe to conclude that I definitely like guys." He frowned. "Or at least that I like you. I really would need a larger sample size to draw broader conclusions."

"Don't you dare," Dick said, unable to keep a tiny edge of worry out of his voice even though he knew Nix was only making fun, and even though it was hardly fair to deny Nix what Dick himself had been getting for years.

"Don't be stupid," Nix said, in a tone that implied that he thought that's exactly what Dick was most of the time. He trailed his hand from the inside of Dick's arm all the way down to his thigh and squeezed. "Why would I go anywhere else when I have all this?"

Dick could think of a few reasons, but he didn't want to nag or whine, so he didn't say anything.

Nix sighed. "Guess we're going to have to keep doing this until you believe that you're stuck with me," he said. "It will be a great hardship, but such is army life."

He was smiling, so Dick smiled too, because maybe this was real, and maybe Nix would keep his promise, and maybe the only things that could stand in the way of that were the war and Dick himself. "I'll try to be less stupid," he promised, a fraction of a return for Nix's near marriage proposal. At this rate, they'd pull even in the next hundred years or so. Dick was looking forward to working on it. "But, Nix, we have to be careful."

"No kidding," Nix said, then he grinned. "That's why I'm going to steal the keys to General Taylor's house. He's gone all week dealing with Varsity and whatever Bradley's calling Patton's adventure."

"Lew!" Dick said reprovingly, though he was hardly shocked, and the idea of messing up Taylor's sheets had a certain appeal.

Nix shrugged and didn't bother responding to that, instead he said, "Why don't you tell me about all the other things you want me to do to you, so I can be ready?"

His thumbnail was circling Dick's nipple, and it was a difficult kind of request to ignore, but these past few days had worn Dick to the bone, and he couldn't play along any more. Instead of giving Nix the answer he was aiming for, Dick let himself ask, "Can you hold me? Please?"

"Yeah," Nix said. He sounded a little surprised, but said again, "Yeah, of course. Just a minute." He scrambled over Dick and went and found a basin and cloth to clean them up, then nudged Dick off the bed enough to get the blankets free from under him. Finally he crawled back over Dick and spooned up behind him, wrapping his arms around Dick's middle and burying his nose in Dick's hair. "This good?" Nix asked.

"It's perfect," Dick told him, and it was.

**Author's Note:**

> There is now a sequel from Nix's PoV: [Close to Heaven as Earth Can Get](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14734397)


End file.
